Ken Burgin

Restaurant Productivity

Increase Your Sales

Pandemic recovery plan

Expect a Tough, Demanding Summer for Restaurants and Cafes

The Covid delta variant is widespread, limiting activity and creating fear of new variations. People are nervous, which always limits spending. There’s very little of the ‘see you on the other side’ mentality that was a saving feature of 2020. What are the challenges that business operators will need to navigate in the next six months? Vaccine resisters are a tiny minority, but noisy – and if you expect young staff to handle them at

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Restaurant Training Quiz

How to Use a Trivia Quiz for Restaurant & Pub Training, or to Keep Customers Connected

A good Trivia Quiz is a great way to lift the spirits and stretch the brain, and in the time of Covid lockdowns, it’s also an excellent way to stay connected with customers, staff and friends. Staff Training: I’ve had a lot of success with quizzes lately, using a Trivia Quiz to train staff in a new business product – an otherwise very dry subject. Technical details had to be learned, and there’s a limit

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Customer Experience for Restaurants

What’s the Net Easy Score (NES) for your Restaurant or Cafe?

You’re probably heard of NPS or Net Promoter Score, a simple measurement of how likely people are to do business with you again. Another way to measure your business is with the Net Easy Score or NES. Based on work by Sue Barrett, it looks at the restaurant customer experience – all the ways your business is easy, or difficult, to deal with. Here are ten ways NES could measure this in restaurants, cafes and

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Google Alerts for Restaurants

How to Use Google Alerts for Restaurant Marketing

Using Google Alerts for Restaurants is like having a magic wand that finds new sales opportunities and shows what your competitors are doing. In fact, Google Alerts is a content change detection and notification service, based on the Google search engine. It sends emails to the user when it finds new results—such as mentions on web pages, newspaper articles, blogs, or research about a topic. It’s a great way to find out who is talking

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Covid Lockdown for Restaurants

Plan B for a Covid Lockdown for Restaurants or Cafes

As COVID controls and vaccination helps businesses return to more normal operations, government policy in Australia and New Zealand now seems to be using selective lock-downs to control spot fires and coronavirus outbreaks. Planning is essential for when there’s another Covid Lockdown for Restaurants or Cafes. Your Lockdown Plan B needs to cover three critical areas, so you can move within hours to protect your business, and alert customers, staff and suppliers. First, diversify your

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Restaurant Marketing Calendar

Restaurant Marketing Calendar – Social & Environmental Issues

There are special days and months all through the year, to celebrate and commemorate important themes and social issues – a great way to add depth and variety to your cafe or restaurant marketing calendar. There may be ways to include them in the calendar of events at your cafe or restaurant, on social media or just as a reminder to staff. Customers respond very positively to your support for social and environmental issues. Check

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Restaurant Forecasting

Smarter Restaurant Forecasting to Boost Sales & Stop Cost Blowouts

With smart ‘future-watching’, you can adjust staff and purchasing to reflect expected business much more accurately. Covid disruption has shaken up a lot of business patterns, but it’s still possible to make good predictions about future sales and customer numbers. Caterers work with 100% certainty for much of the time – they get low food and wage costs because they work with exact numbers, not guesswork. So how can a café, restaurant or bar also

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C.R.C. – 3 Words to Get Much Better Results

If your staff management, menu updates, and marketing is inconsistent, these 3 words will get you back on track. They create much-needed discipline in an industry that’s often ‘hit and miss’, and they also show staff and public that your business is professional and reliable. Calendar + Reminders = Consistency. And consistency is what makes the difference between smart ideas, and the implementation of them that creates results. Consistency is what your competitors rarely achieve

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QR Codes for Restaurant

How to Use QR Codes for Restaurant Marketing and Management – dozens of easy examples

Everyone understands QR codes, now that they’re used for COVID check-ins. Point your smartphone camera at a QR code, and a website or app will pop up. Use QR codes for restaurant marketing, menu sharing, recruitment and daily operations. In fact QR codes have been around for many years, and widely used in Asian countries – now that they’re understood here, you can start to leverage them for all areas of your business. How many

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Recruiting Chefs

How to Have More Success Recruiting Chefs in Rural Areas

Your country cafe or restaurant offers good conditions, proper pay, decent hours, a friendly boss and a modern kitchen. So why can’t you find good staff? It’s time for a shift in how you promote the opportunities – the talent is out there, so let’s update the recruitment methods. Promote the benefits of your area. Check the local tourist authority and council websites – they know how to talk up the town. Country rents and

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